My passion for caring started at a young age, it was not until my first job in an aged care home that I realised my purpose was to support and advocate for people to have quality, dignified person centred, end of life care. 

 I started my career at 17yrs of age working in an aged care facility as a care worker. Very early in my career I had a terrible experience with a gentleman that had died in an 8 bed ward, experiencing the way death shouldn't be done.

When I was 21 I applied for a nursing position. However, with over 400 applicants and only 25 positions, I was unsuccessful. Not deterred by this, I wrote a letter to the local MP about my passion for nursing and was given the opportunity to enrol in an apprenticeship style program working in aged care.

 

Since then, I have continued to work in the sector and across the past 20 years have become an advocate for holistic, respective person centred care.   

 

 

Across the past 20 years I have had a number of roles, some of my nursing roles have included agency nursing, endoscopy, emergency and aged care. I worked as a regional assessment officer, was a part of the clinical education team at Mansfield District hospital as the safe patient handling coordinator, and I have worked as a trainer and assessor with Metro ambulance, rural ambulance and then ambulance Victoria,  asthma australia, lifesaving Victoria delivering first aid units and facilitated training in the aged care / individual support units locally.   The one thing that has remained consistent for me within these positions has been my passion for palliative care and aged care, which ultimately led me to Rosehaven. I am also very proud to say I am a death Doula and feel very privileged to be managing Rosehaven hospice. 
 

Rosehaven is a community owned and operated not for profit non clinical hospice offering short term respite and end of life care to the people of Mansfield and surrounding areas. We are a team of caring and compassionate people, with a volunteer base of 80+ volunteers.

 

Since opening in 2021, we have worked with guests and their families to create a tranquil setting. We have 5 bedrooms in our purpose built home, which is open to anyone of any age who has a life limiting illness. We provide a wide range of services including advance care planning, advocacy and support, respite, community outreach support, transport, end of life care, after death care, grief and bereavement, social support, memoir writing and we have a team of dedicated volunteers supporting people in the voluntary assisted dying space. 

I love my work, the difference Rosehaven is making, and the compassionate, caring community that we have created and continue to grow.